the house speaker characterized the negotiations to avoid huge tax increases and spending cuts at a stalemate. the race to solve the fiscal cliff triggered another round of dramatic sound bites from republicans and president obama. darren gersh has the latest. >> reporter: the president is still pushing to wrap up a deal on the fiscal cliff before christmas and just in case anyone missed that point, he visited a toy factory to urge congress to avoid raising taxes on the middle class. >> that's sort of like the lump of coal you get for christmas. that's a scrooge christmas. a typical middle-class family of four would see their income taxes go up by about $2,200. >> reporter: the president is proposing to raise taxes by $1.6 trillion, while cutting spending by $400 billion. on top of that, mr. obama asked for $50 billion more for infrastructure spending and $140 billion to extend unemployment insurance benefits and the payroll tax cut. republicans literally laughed it off. >> they want... they want to have this extra spending that's actually greater than the amount they're willing to cut. i mea